Eurydice
by kayelem
Summary: Orpheus descended into the Underworld to save Eurydice. But he had failed to consider two things: Maybe she had gone willingly, and perhaps she did not wish to be saved. [Bellarke. Post S2 Finale]
1. I

**Eurydice**

 **\- I -**

 _Until we have seen someone's darkness, we don't really know who they are.  
Until we have forgiven someone's darkness, we don't really know what love is.  
\- Marianne Williamson_

Bellamy knows Clarke Griffin far better than he wants to admit, to himself, or anyone else. It's a fact he's tried to ignore, but a _fact_ nonetheless. He knows the steady presence of her at his side as surely as the beating in his chest, the breath in his lungs.

So he _knows_ the instant she starts to tailspin.

Always level-headed and rational, Clarke isn't prone to panic, but in the command center, Bellamy witnesses her spiral into a kind of quiet madness that terrifies him to his core. He watches as it twists and molds Clarke into something that he doesn't recognize, witnesses the yawning darkness that she had held softly inside of herself rise and rise, until it seems to dim the light behind her eyes.

And Clarke looks to him, her other half in more ways than he wants to admit, to help her, to pull her back from the edge of the abyss into which she is about to plunge.

 _Tell me another way, find me another way._

But he can't. There isn't. And Bellamy is, not for the first time, faced with all of his glaring inadequacies in the face of the realization that he can't save her from this.

Bellamy can, however, take equal share of the decision, just as they took equal share in leading their people.

 _Don't let me do this… don't let me do this_ _ **alone**_ _._

She never actually says it, she never would, and Bellamy would never expect her to - led by some misguided attempt to save _him_ in turn. But he still hears it, somehow, as though it whispers against his mind, a phantom weight suddenly heavy in his soul that is surely only a fraction of what Clarke forces herself to carry.

Despite the thick leather covering her hand Bellamy feels it trembling over the lever. _Together._ Clarke's relieved exhale is little more than a shudder, like the last shred of her soul leaving her, and Bellamy watches her close her eyes as his hand tightens her fingers over the lever. He closes his eyes too, pressing his forehead against Clarke's hair, breathes in the smell of sweat and leather, earth and something sharp that reminds him of the air on the Ark – like ozone.

Clarke's arm is slack beneath his as Bellamy pulls the lever for them.

Clarke moves once the lever was down, once they hear the scrubbers stop for a moment and then start again. Her eyes dart between the screens, edge to edge, and Bellamy knows that she is committing it to memory, forcing herself to watch the people of Mount Weather die. Somehow, each death seems to take more from her than the last.

Bellamy watches Octavia, her figure so impossibly small on screen, turning in a circle as the room around her crumples and dies, wilting in on themselves. Another thing he has failed to protect his sister from – the last sounds of the dozens of people around her as they die so, so slowly, and at the same time so, so quickly.

"Let's go get our people."

Bellamy isn't sure if it's Clarke that speaks, or if it is the shadow that has swallowed her and seems now to wear her skin.

 **.**

He has to keep glancing at her out of the corner of his eye to make sure Clarke is still there. Instinctively, Bellamy knows that she's there, because where else would she be if not at his side, but unlike all the times before he cannot _feel_ her there. Clarke is there bodily, yes, but that has never really been what Bellamy has felt at his side – she is not there in the sense that he needs her to be.

He is not surprised that she wants to leave, but still something in him rails against the idea. It sends his stomach into knots, and there's an uncomfortable dryness in his throat that he cannot swallow down because he blames himself.

Bellamy had failed her. The one and only time he has failed Clarke, and the price paid had been so impossibly high. She had asked him to tell her another way, to find for her a solution that didn't cost her soul. But he couldn't. There wasn't.

"Look. If you need forgiveness, I'll give that to you. You're forgiven. Please come inside." _I need you to forgive me. Tell me you forgive me. Please don't leave._

"Take care of them for me." _Of course you're forgiven._

"Clarke –"

"No. Seeing them every day is just going to remind me of what I did to get them here."

"What we did. You don't have to do this alone." _I_ _ **can't**_ _do this without you._

"… I bear it so they don't have to." _I bear it so_ _ **you**_ _don't have to._

"Where are you gonna go?"

"I don't know."

Clarke's lips against his cheek are strangely cold, but Bellamy slides his arms around her, comforted, if only for a moment, by the solid weight of her against him. He releases her slowly, hesitantly, wanting to keep her here with him for as long as he possibly can. But he lets her go because he has to, his fingers lingering at the curve of her waist as Clarke steps away and turns, the tips of his fingers brushing against her jacket as she takes her first stride away from him.

Bellamy turns because he can't watch her walk away from him, a sigh shuddering past his lips and wonders if Clarke even realizes just what she was taking from him.

* * *

 **I am Bellarke trash. This was something in my head after having FINALLY watched season 2.**

 **A few things you should know:**

 **1 - Chapters will probably be short. This is so I can get them out quicker. Hopefully. My track record with writing hasn't been that great lately.  
2 - This will veer into AU territory, but I will not reveal how just yet. **

**Please, please, PLEASE let me know what you thought. :)**

 **\- Kay**


	2. II

**Eurydice**

 **\- II -**

Clarke's absence weighs on Bellamy, and it's heavier than he expected. He's unsure if it's the weight of her loss, or if it's the burden of leading their people by himself. He's afraid to fail her again because he doesn't have the same faith in himself that Clarke has in him. Bellamy has always had Clarke by his side, even when he wasn't sure he wanted her there, and now he has to fill the hole Clarke left behind – in more ways than one.

So Bellamy stops counting the days since Clarke left. He can't afford to be distracted by thoughts of her while trying to assimilate the remaining 100 into the structure of the society the Arkers have developed within Camp Jaha's walls. So he carries the loss like a secret, keeps it locked away behind the caging of his ribs and does what Clarke asked of him: he takes care of their people.

The Arkers don't really seem to know what to do with them, or how to react to them, but Bellamy isn't all that surprised.

On the Ark, the 100 had been locked away – out of sight, out of mind. They were delinquents, criminals, not productive members of society, while Bellamy himself had been a disgraced cadet. Here on the ground, it's another story entirely. The Arkers can't ignore what the 100 have gone through since being sent to the ground, can't ignore _them_ – they can't afford to because the camp has not made contact with any of the other stations that made to the ground, and also because they need as many extra hands as possible.

There are still people that brush them off, that don't want anything to do with them, still thinking of them as criminals. The two or three that have family within the camp's walls find it difficult to settle back in with them because they are not the same kids that they knew on the Ark; the families that lost children to the ground are resentful and distant, and the kids who don't know what happened to their families are torn somewhere between relieved and distracted – relieved because they don't want their families to see what they've had to become to survive and distracted because the idea of finally seeing them again is too much to hope for.

Without anyone really telling them to, and without any real approval the remaining 100 establish their own corner of Camp Jaha – an amalgamation of rickety shacks and lean-tos, all clustered together in almost too close proximity, but the walls break the wind, and the roofs only leak in a few places. Bellamy understands their need to go back to someone familiar because sticking together had gotten them all through everything, and the idea of being too far away from each other must terrify them.

And in the far back corner of the camp, they don't risk waking the Arkers in the night with screaming.

.

It takes less time than Bellamy had hoped for, but the trauma the remaining 100 endured begins to take its toll in fits and starts.

Jasper shaves his head and stops speaking to nearly everyone, Monty included and almost especially Bellamy. There are bruise-like shadows beneath his eyes that tell everyone just how little sleep he's getting, but no one dares say anything for fear of making themselves a hypocrite. On his nightly rounds, Bellamy sometimes catches Jasper slinking through the camp, silent as a shadow.

Monty retreats into himself, Harper never far from his side anymore, but he seems to find some comfort in helping the camp get into better condition. He jumps at any loud noise, but they all do these days, and eats little. His jovial personality is greatly dimmed, and smiles are slow coming, laughter even slower.

Octavia wakes screaming in the night, choking on tears, no doubt haunted by the all people she had watched die. In daylight hours she turns it into pushing her body as far as it will let her, seeming to hope that she'll be too exhausted for nightmares, but she never is – none of them are. She's quick and easy to anger, snapping like whip-cord at the drop of a hat at anyone who has the misfortune of being in her path. She barely speaks to Bellamy, and when she does it's one word answers. He wonders if she's figured out that she factored into his decision to irradiate Mt. Weather – that he did it for her as much as he did it for Clarke.

Raven becomes much like the machines she works with until Bellamy is certain that she's managed to replace her blood and organs with circuitry and gears. She's rarely seen outside of the workshop, and the only people she consistently spends time with are Wick and Monty. She jumps when anyone moves towards her too quickly, a weapon at the ready whenever she's caught off guard. She complains more and more often about pain in her leg until one day not even the brace can help her walk.

Bellamy wakes in cold sweat, the taste of blood between his teeth from biting the inside of his cheek to silence the screams that try to claw their way out in his sleep. He forces his hands steady when they shake, counts through seizing panic even when he's certain that his heart is simply going to burst from beating so hard. He stops turning toward flashes of blonde hair out of the corner of his eye as something akin to resentment wraps its way around every thought and memory of Clarke.

.

Jasper goes missing.

Clarke has been gone 43 days.

* * *

 **Please let me know what you thought!**

 **\- Kay**


End file.
